Fathers and Sons
knew every wrinkle as regards the departments of housekeeping, boiling,
and baking (and that even though she herself never laid a finger upon
anything, and hated even to have to stir from her place); she was
aware that there were certain folk in the world who must command, and
others who must serve--wherefore she loved servility and genuflexions;
she treated all her subordinates with kindness and consideration; she
sent never a beggar away empty; and she condemned no one for a fault,
although at times she had a tendency to talk scandal. Likewise, in
her youth she had been comely, and a player of the clavichord, and
able to speak a little French; but, owing to long residence with a
husband whom she had married purely for love, she had grown rusty in
those accomplishments, and forgotten alike her French and her music;
she loved and feared her son to a degree almost beyond expression; she
deputed the management of her property entirely to Vasili Ivanitch, and
never interfered with it, but would fall to gasping, and waving her
handkerchief about, and affrightedly raising her eyebrows, whenever
her helpmeet happened to broach some new plan or some necessary reform
which he had in his mind's eye; and, lastly, she was of so apprehensive
a temperament that she lived in constant fear of some unknown
misfortune, and would burst into tears should any one mention anything
of a mournful character.
Such women are now extinct; and only God knows whether we ought to be
glad of the fact.
[1] An endearing diminutive of Evgenii.
[2] Cossack whips.
[3] Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836), a well-known German
physicist whose treatise _Makrobiotik_, or _The Art of Prolonging
Life_, has been translated into almost every European language.
[4] "To each his own."
[5] _i.e._ serfs.
[6] Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793-1864), a noted German physician.
[7] Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), most commonly
known by his self-coined name of Paracelsus, and a German-Swiss
traveller and physician.
[8] Napoleon III.
[9] _Urodivïe_, or "sacred imbeciles," were persons who, deficient of
intellect in the ordinary sense, were yet believed by ancient Russia
to enjoy particularly intimate communication with the divine and the
unseen.
XXI
When, in the morning, Arkady rose and opened the window, the first
object to greet his eyes was Vasili Ivanitch. Clad in a smock-frock,
and belted with a handkerchief, the old man was busily digging in his
vegetable garden. As soon as he noticed his young guest, he leaned upon
his spade, and cried:
"Good morning! How have you slept?"
"Splendidly," replied Arkady.
"And I, as you see, am imitating Cincinnatus, and preparing a bed of
late turnips. By the mercy of God do the times compel every man to
win his bread with his own hands. At all times, indeed, is it useless
to rely upon others: it is best to work oneself. Thus Jean Jacques
Rousseau was right. Half an hour ago, however, you would have seen me
in a very different rôle--first of all, injecting opium into a woman
who had come to me with what the peasants call I the goad,' and we
dysentery, and then pulling out some teeth for a second woman. And,
would you believe it, when I proposed administering ether to the second
woman she would have none of it! These things I do gratis, you know,
and as an amateur. Yet, let that not surprise you, for, after all, I am
but a plebeian, but a _homo novus_. Come downstairs to sit in the shade
and enjoy the freshness of the morning until breakfast shall be ready."
Arkady did as invited.
"You confer a favour upon me," said Vasili Ivanitch, raising his hand
in military fashion to the battered skull-cap which adorned his head.
"You see, I know you to be used to luxury and ease. Yet even the folk
of the great world need not disdain to snatch a brief respite under the
roof of a cottage."
"I neither belong to the great world nor am used to luxury," protested
Arkady.
"Come now!" Vasili Ivanitch indulged in an amiable affectation of
incredulity. "I myself, though I am now on the shelf, have rubbed about
in my time, and can tell a bird by its flight. Also, I dabble a little
in physiognomy and psychology. For that matter, I will not hesitate
to say that, had I _not_ enjoyed those advantages, I should long ago
have come to rack and ruin, for the reason that, being one of the small
fry, I should soon have been jostled out of the way by the crowd. Also,
without flattery, I may say that the friendship which I discern to
be existing between you and my son affords me the greatest pleasure.
Only this moment I was speaking to him; for (as probably you know) he
jumps out of bed at a very early hour, and goes careering all over the
countryside. M-might I make so bold as to ask you whether you have
known him long?"
"Only since last winter."
"Indeed? Also, might I make so bold as to ask whether--But sit you
down, will you not?--might I also, as his father, venture to ask your
frank opinion of him?"
"Your son is the most remarkable man that I have ever met," came the
enthusiastic reply.
Vasili Ivanitch's eyes closed suddenly, while his cheeks quivered, and
the spade slipped from his hand.
"Then you think?" he began.
"I do not _think_--I am certain that there lies before your son a
future which will make your name famous. I have felt certain of this
since the first moment I met him."
"Indeed? Indeed?" Vasili Ivanitch could scarcely articulate the words,
but on his capacious lips there had dawned, and become fixed, a smile
of triumph.
"Would you like to hear how our first meeting came about?"
"Indeed I should! And any other details you like."
Arkady therefore plunged into a discourse on Bazarov of the same ardour
and the same enthusiasm as he had displayed on the night of the mazurka
with Madame Odintsov. As Vasili Ivanitch listened, he blew his nose,
rolled his handkerchief into a ball, coughed, and ruffled his hair;
until, no longer able to contain himself, he reached over in Arkady's
direction, and pressed his lips to the young man's shoulder.
"You have indeed cheered my heart!" he exclaimed, still smiling. "I
simply idolise my son! But while my dear old wife is able to stand
on rather a different footing with Evgenii--she is his mother, you
know--I myself dare not express my whole feelings in his presence,
for the reason that he dislikes such things, and is opposed to any
manifestations of emotion. For the same reason some folk accuse him of
hardness of heart and pride and insensibility; but men like Evgenii
cannot be measured by ordinary standards, can they? For example, any
one but he would have gone on acting as a drag upon his parents; but,
would you believe it? never once since his birth has he asked us for a
_kopeck_ more than he absolutely needed! There, by God!"
"Yes, your son is a sincere, single-minded man," agreed Arkady.
"Yes, single-minded," affirmed Vasili Ivanitch. "And not only do I
idolise him--I am proud of him, and have as my one conceit the hope
that some day there may stand in his biography the following words: 'He
was the son of a plain military doctor who, nevertheless, had the wit
to divine the merits of the subject of this book, and to spare no pains
in his education.'"
The old man's voice faltered for a moment, but presently resumed:
"What think you? Will the field of medicine bring him the fame which
you have foretold?"
"Not the field of medicine alone--though in it, as elsewhere, he will
become a leader."
"What field, then, Arkady Nikolaievitch?"
"I could not say. But in any case he will rise to fame."
"'He will rise to fame'!" The old man relapsed into a state of ecstatic
contemplation.
Presently Anfisushka arrived with a large plate of raspberries and the
message:
"Arina Vlasievna has sent me to say that breakfast is ready."
Vasili Ivanitch started from his reverie.
"Bring us also some nice cool plums," he said.
"I will, sir."
"Yes, mind that they are cool. Arkady Nikolaievitch, do not stand on
ceremony, but help yourself. Is Evgenii Vasilitch yet back, Anfisushka?"
"I am," called Bazarov from Arkady's room.
Vasili Ivanitch wheeled about.
"Aha!" he cried. "So you have gone to pay your friend a visit? But you
are too late, _amice_: he and I have been having a long conversation
together, and it is now breakfast time, and your mother is calling us.
By the way, Evgenii, a word or two with you."
"Concerning what?"
"Concerning a peasant who is suffering from jaundice."
"Jaundice?"
"Yes, of a very chronic and stubborn kind. I have prescribed scurvy
grass and St. John's wort, and ordered the man to eat carrots, and
given him a dose of soda; but such things are mere palliatives--I want
something of a more drastic nature. That you laugh at medicine I am,
of course, aware; but none the less I feel certain that you could give
me some good, practical advice. But that you can do later. At the
present moment, let us go in to breakfast."
And he leapt from the bench on which he had been seated, trolling gaily
the couplet:
"Let us take for our rule, for our rule let us take it,
To live but for pleasure, and never forsake it!"
"What high spirits!" Bazarov remarked as he retired from the window.
Later, when the noontide sun was glowing from behind a thin canopy of
dense, pale vapour, and all was still save that the chirping of a few
birds in the trees lulled the hearer to a curious, drowsy lethargy, and
the incessant call of a young hawk on a topmost bough made the air ring
with its strident note, Arkady and Bazarov made for themselves pillows
of sweet, dry, fragrant, crackling hay, and stretched themselves in the
shadow of a rick.
"Do you see that aspen tree?" remarked Bazarov. "I mean the one growing
at the edge of a depression, where a brick kiln used to stand? Well,
when I was a boy I used to believe that, together, the depression and
the aspen tree constituted a special talisman, in that, when near them,
I never found time hang heavy upon my hands. Of course, the explanation
is that in those days I failed to understand that that immunity from
_ennui_ was due to the very fact of my being a boy. But, now that I am
grown up, the talisman seems to have lost its power."
"How long were you here in those days?"
"Only two years. After that we moved elsewhere. In fact, we led a
wandering life, and spent it mostly in towns."
"Is the house an old one?"
"It is. My maternal grandfather built it."
"Who was he?"
"The devil only knows! I think a major of some sort, a man who had
served under Suvorov,[1] and could tell all manner of tales about
crossing the Alps--though I daresay he told plenty of lies too."
"Ah! I noticed a portrait of Suvorov in the drawing-room.
Cheerful-looking old houses like this I simply love. Somehow they seem
to have a smell of their own."
"Yes--a smell of lamp-oil mingled with trefoil," agreed Bazarov with a
yawn. "But what flies they contain as well!"
There was a pause. Then Arkady resumed:
"Were you strictly kept when you were a boy?"
"You have seen for yourself what my parents are like. Surely they do
not seem very severe folk."
"And do you love them very much?"
"I do."
"Certainly they seem to love _you._"
Bazarov was silent. Presently, however, clasping his hands behind his
head, he asked:
"Do you know what is in my mind?"
"No. What?"
"I am thinking of the pleasant life that my parents must lead. To
think that at sixty my father can still fuss about, and talk of
'palliatives,' and doctor people, and do the bountiful to the peasants,
and, in short, enjoy himself, and that my mother has her days so
crammed full of occupations (including sighing and groaning) that she